Saturday, June 2, 2018

If there was a train across the Pacific, I'd take it

This realisation struck me forcefully as I sat in a crowded
Sydney Airport waiting for a connecting flight home after a 14-hour trip from
Los Angeles.

I like to think of myself as an amiable-enough sort of bloke
most of the time, but when I’m travelling I become a cranky misanthrope. Cooped
up in oppressively close proximity with my fellow human beings, I develop a
strange aversion to them and become sharply aware of their quirks and foibles.

I find myself muttering under my breath at people who take
too long at the check-in counter or try to stuff too much into the overhead
baggage locker.

I harrumph over gimmicky, infantile in-flight safety videos
that go on for far too long – I’m with Bob Jones here – and I bristle at bossy
flight attendants, although most try to be personable and helpful.

Most of all I seethe when dopey or inconsiderate passengers
hold everyone up. At LAX, hundreds of us sat on the tarmac for an hour and a
half because someone had checked in their suitcases but failed to take their
seat, which meant their bags had to be found and unloaded.

I regard the modern airport as a vision of hell, the more so
when I’m stuck in one for hours because my flight is held up, as it so often
is. Delays are endemic in international travel, and airlines are very good at
avoiding responsibility for the consequences. Just watch the ground staff magically
disappear when there’s a departure lounge full of disgruntled travellers
wondering where the hell their plane is.

Other airport irritants include scruffy backpackers – a 21st
century global contagion – who spread themselves across several seats or sprawl
across the floor, obstructing others. In my curmudgeonly state of mind I
imagine many of them are travelling on round-the-world fares paid for by over-indulgent
parents.

In Sydney I observed another phenomenon of modern travel: I
was surrounded by zombies, all blankly fixated by their “devices” in what
appeared to be a case of mass Facebook hypnosis. I’m not just talking about
millennials here: “senior” women too were mesmerised by their phones and
tablets. Not for the first time, I wondered what could be so riveting as to
demand their total attention.

In the toilets, I had to listen to men noisily hoicking. Why
do males apparently feel the need to do this when women don’t? And what is it
about airport toilets that triggers this nauseating habit – or do these slobs do
the same at home?

To get to the departure lounge, I had to pass through
duty-free outlets where I was assailed by hucksters – polite, attractive
hucksters, but hucksters nonetheless – trying to sell me perfume and liquor
that I can buy cheaper elsewhere.

Fliers once had the option of bypassing duty-free. Now they
have no choice. It’s a racket, pure and simple, but there was no shortage of
buyers. Somehow the idea has been implanted in travellers’ heads that duty-free
shopping is always cheaper than elsewhere. This has enabled airport companies
and duty-free operators to enter a very lucrative conspiracy aimed at
exploiting the gullible.

The flight from LAX to Sydney had been arduous, as long-haul
air travel always is for me. Some people happily pass the time watching movies,
but something strange happens to my brain when I board an aircraft. Though I
rarely sleep, I lose all interest in watching movies or listening to music, and
even reading palls after a time.

On this occasion I forced myself to watch a movie and chose
to see Dunkirk for the second time –
a dumb choice. All movies are greatly diminished on those tiny screens and
tinny earphones, but Dunkirk – which
depends heavily on its spectacular cinematography and sound effects – more than
most.

The rest of the time I did what I invariably end up doing on long-haul flights: I
gritted my teeth and imagined that by sheer force of will, I could somehow make
the time pass more quickly. In the process I almost lost the will to live.

My wife and I had paid extra for exit-row seats, which at
least meant I could stretch out. I don’t think I could have lasted the flight
squeezed into a standard seat, which these days seems designed for people with
the bodies of teenage Olympic gymnasts.

At least I’m relatively thin. How large people manage is
beyond me, to say nothing of the miserable wretches who have to sit beside
them. And how the hell do obese passengers get on in the aircraft dunnies,
where there’s barely enough room even for people of normal size?

I recently read that airlines earn nearly one-third of their
revenue from the 5 percent of passengers who fly business class, which kind of
puts everything in perspective. Corporate travellers and the rich must be kept
happy – the rest of us not so much.

What it all boils down to is this: airlines have made flying
a whole lot cheaper by packing more and more people in, but there’s a trade-off
in terms of comfort and enjoyment. Only a mug could believe that flying is
still the pleasurable and exotic experience that it once was.

It has become an ordeal, pure and simple. If I could take a
train across the Pacific I’d do it, even if the trip took a week.

2 comments:

Haha..re the ambien. I have a similar policy Bonzo but they only sometimes work for me, damn/blast...being a pretty wired, nervous passenger. Karl, spot on, long hauls are to be endured, not enjoyed, movies are rendered unwatchable (try tv series..it's often all they're good for)I've yet to encounter a fatty but it will happen...yes to extra leg-room seats, and if they're near the loos there's prurient entertainment of sorts watching the passing parade of recidivist tiny bladders &, if on Singapore Airlines, the hosties trying to clean them, sans gloves. Yech. And...what is it with the passengers who hit the loos right during boarding?! Having been corralled beside a loo block for an age??? My policy is trains everywhere after the singularly awful long-haul test from Enzed.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.